A Love or Ethics
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: [Tony/Loki] Tony used to have a clear view of what he wanted his life to be. But life didn't work like that, and trying to force Loki to fit into his life plans was like hammering a square peg through a triangular hole.


I'm not going to get into an ethics debate about this, because I have my opinion and you have your opinion. Anyone who has been in this sort of situation before, I'm so sorry, and I hope I haven't offended you with this story.

This was supposed to be from Loki's POV, but it just didn't work that way.

"A Love or Ethics"

**Disclaimer: ** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary: ** [Tony/Loki] Tony used to have a clear view of what he wanted his life to be. But life didn't work like that, and trying to force Loki to fit into his life plans was like hammering a square peg through a triangular hole.

**Warnings: ** Slash. Loki/Tony. Post-Avengers. Language. Angst. AU. FrostIron. Abortion talk. Mpreg. Tumblr prompt. Arsehole Tony.

**Rating: ** PG-15?

**A/N**: For "Fallenfort hecullen Fanfic" on facebook, who requested: Loki and Tony have known each other for a while, but Tony is still in the closet and not interested in having children so tells Loki to 'take care of it'. Whether Loki did or not was up to me, and since I've already depressed everyone once today…

_XXX_

**Words: **2,525

**Chapter 1**

This wasn't what he wanted. Any time he actually bothered to sit down and think about what he expected from life, this had never crossed his mind. He actually made a list once, when he was thirteen and bored and because a college application form had asked him: "where do you see yourself in ten years' time?"

But a baby hadn't been on that list. Especially not a baby who had magically been conceived on another man, because that was something that couldn't be easily swept under the rug, that just made things twice as complicated.

Nor had coming out of the closet to be honest, because Tony didn't see himself as gay or straight or bisexual. He didn't like labels and he didn't like to be talked about in the media, though he couldn't actually help that, and he had always found it to be easier to go on the way he was, fucking every woman that was willing and contenting himself with eyeing up the attractive men, looking but not touching.

Until Loki.

The God had turned his head at their second meeting, cheeks flushed and eyes wide as he paced the width of Tony's tower sceptre in one hand. Tony hadn't been able to keep his eyes to himself. He had gone to the bar for his bracelets, in case he needed to deploy his Iron Man suit, but also for a drink, something to have in his hand to distract himself because he was half afraid he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off of Loki. He was beautiful, long legged and angular, dark hair and full lips, and it was a pity he wasn't a woman because Tony would have hit that all night long (crazy megalomaniac or otherwise).

His father wouldn't have approved though, of Loki being a man that is, though he probably wouldn't have been too pleased at the attempt at world domination either. What did it say about him, that even after nearly twenty years since his death Tony still sought his father's approval?

He should have kept his hands to himself. None of this would have happened if Tony had just kept his hands to himself.

Loki had repented, carried out his sentence with scorn and many dirty looks, and when it was over he had left Asgard with his head held high, refusing to look at any of them but especially not his not-family. He had arrived on Tony's doorstep, back straight and shoulders tense asking for the drink that Tony had offered him the year before. Tony, never one to turn away a pretty face, had invited him inside for a drink and then another and another, that night and the next, until eventually Loki was moving in, bustling around his lap side by side with Tony and Bruce, suiting up to defend the city whenever Steve called for the Avengers to assemble. Without any of them really noticing it, Loki slipped into the cracks in their team, filling them up and completing them, and Tony wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Two years with Loki as his friend and comrade, (and sometimes entertainment, because he always chose Thor as his sparring partner whenever he was forced to attend team bonding sessions, and entertaining it always was). Two years since Pepper had left him, but in which he had drank half as much as he ever had, took no drugs, slept with less and less women every month, but was as happy as he had always imagined himself to be as a child imagining his future grown up self.

That was on Loki too. But that was a good thing. They had had a good thing, him and Loki. It started with Loki's subtle flirting, and then his not so subtle flirting, until everyone who didn't already know knew the God was gay and interested in Tony Stark. They all told him the same thing: "no chance, Loki. Tony isn't gay."

But Loki kept trying. Until one night when Tony just couldn't keep his hands to himself, and they ended up on Loki's waist, lifting the God into his lap while their mouths met, wet and furious and desperate, and then his hands were on Loki's arse, inside of him, twisting and spreading and touching until his cock was there instead. They fucked on the sofa, where anyone could have walked in and seen them, seen Tony with another man but he had been desperate for it, for Loki, after years of wanting too desperate to care right then about getting caught.

After they were done, Loki reached over to hug Tony against his chest, but Tony pulled away, twisted free of Loki's arms and deposited the other man down beside him on the couch before standing up. He fixed his clothes in silence, and refused to look at Loki when he said, "this never happened."

"I love you," Loki had whispered, just loud enough for Tony to hear as he walked out of the room as fast as he could.

It hadn't happened again, and Tony tried his hardest to pretend it hadn't happened at all, but Loki was determined. He continued to be Tony's friend, his lab partner, his drinking buddy, following him everywhere so that Tony couldn't possibly ignore his existence, and when they finally talked about it Tony told him about Howard, about the media, about everything about him that he didn't want dragged through the mud, about the thousands of men who would happily lie to the press claiming to be his lover (though Loki had been his first) if it ever broke the news. And Tony didn't want to deal with that, but he wanted to deal with a baby even less, because he had never wanted children. He had read somewhere once that if you were a bad child, your children would be five times worse, and he had convinced him then that he must have been a bad child, because otherwise his father would have loved him. He couldn't imagine his life with a child in it, had no interest in having a child in his life, Loki's or anyone else's, and he had made no secret of having to previous pay for abortions for girls who claimed he had gotten them pregnant.

But they were strangers, not Loki, and Pepper had dealt with them rather than sending him in person and it wasn't the same as seeing the broken look twist itself across Loki's face as Tony told him, "I'm not interested in having children, Loki. So go and take care of it." Feeling guilty, he added, "I'll pay for it of course, and have Happy drive you."

"But I want to have this baby!" Loki shouted at his back. Tony paused, half way out of the door, again, because he always seemed to be walking away from Loki and avoiding his feelings for the God, because that's what Tony Stark did best.

"Fine," the man relented, sighing loudly. Loki allowed himself to smile, just a small one that was quickly wiped from his face by Tony's next words, "but it's your problem then. I'll deny any knowledge of it, of you. I don't want anything to do with it, so either take my money and abort it or keep it and get it out of my life."

Loki loved him, Tony knew, Loki was very much in love with him. He wouldn't leave, at least Tony hoped not, because there were feelings on his part too and with his shit track record he'd only come to realise them once it was too late and Loki was gone, and he didn't want to deal with that either.

Loki didn't leave. Tony didn't want to ask about the baby or the abortion, about Loki's choice; instead, every day when he woke up and Loki was gone from his bed he'd ask Jarvis where Loki went. The longer that went by with Loki spending his nights beneath Tony, writhing and moaning for more, and his mornings specifically _not_ having an abortion, the more Tony allowed himself to come to terms with the notion. He found himself, against his will, thinking about child proofing the tower. There was that day in the lab where he had started working on a new engine for his Maserati and ended up designing the schematics for a baby crib that would rock itself, playing soothing music and alarm at set times to remind him to feed the baby. That hadn't been on his list of things he expected from life either, but Tony had sat at his work bench, staring down at the blue prints that spread themselves across the desk, old fashioned ones on paper because his hand had gotten carried away and paper could be gotten rid of easily. No one saw them, no one knew about them, and Tony pretended it hadn't happened.

Until it happened again. He designed car seats, a special Iron Man suit that he had to scrap because carrying a baby on the back of one was just retarded regardless of how long he spent sitting around thinking about it, buggies, and toys. Eventually he stopped burning his designs, and instead piled them carefully on the far side of the bench, waiting until he had time to build them because they were mostly all things that Loki would need for the baby.

And it was the morning that Tony had woken up, without Loki beside him as usual because the man was an early bird like Tony was a night owl, after dreaming of a tiny little dark haired brat running around the tower grinning that Loki made up his mind.

"Jarvis, where's Loki? I have something to tell him. I've decided I want to keep the baby."

"Oh?" Jarvis asked, sounding a little less cold that morning. He hadn't been pleased at Tony's attempt to cajole Loki into having an abortion. "Mr Odinson has done as you instructed, sir. Happy brought him to the clinic an hour ago. He should be done about now."

Tony hadn't been sure how it would work, something about his internal organs always being the same, both sets of reproductive organs always being there, and only his outsides changing; switching to female for the termination and then switching back to male after he left, but the womb would still be there, because that was a part of Loki, there would just be no child in it afterwards. He should have asked more questions, he realised, figured out how long it would take and how much it would hurt and if it was likely to affect the chances of Loki getting pregnant again, but Tony hadn't. Because he had been too busy being selfish and cowardly and pathetic. And now it was too late.

He took his own car, rushing out of the door following Jarvis' directions, and it was only luck that stopped his car at the red lights just as Happy was driving around the corner. Tony beeped, frantically, hanging up the phone he had left ringing out on his seat because Loki hadn't answered once since Jarvis had first informed him and Tony had tried to hunt him down. Tony was out of the car, the engine still running, when Happy pulled up beside him with the hazard lights on.

"Sir?" He asked, rolling down his window. "Is something wrong?"

"Loki?" Tony asked instead, pulling open the passenger door and jumping into the backseat beside his lover. "I am an inconsiderate bastard and I deserve to be stoned to death, or whatever else you think I deserve because it's your call. It's on you, you choose. I hurt you and I have been treating you like shit for months and I'm so sorry. And I love you, and I only realised this morning when I thought I had lost you and isn't that always the way, and fuck, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to make this better for you." He reached out a shaking hand, allowing it to hover over Loki's stomach.

"You don't have to lie to make me feel better, Tony. I love you," Loki told him softly, eyes watering. "But I couldn't do it, and I'm sorry that you can only care about me when I'm not pregnant, but I want this baby, I do. I tried, because I love you, I tried to kill him but I couldn't and I'm not sorry about that."

"You didn't do it?" Tony whispered, heart lodging in his throat.

"I sat there for an hour after the doctor called me and I couldn't make myself get up. They kept calling me, every time someone was late or they had a free appointment; the perks of being paid for by Tony Stark I suppose, hmm?" Loki glanced away, though his hands were pressed over the swell of his stomach, and he had left it horribly late to get a termination Tony noticed. How had he not noticed before how far along Loki was, almost four months, and wasn't that practically the deadline? Money can buy you everything, he thought with a disgusted twist of his lips, and wasn't he worse for paying for it.

"Good. I'm glad." Tony pressed his hands over Loki's. "I was on my way to the clinic to beg you to change your mind. I prayed on the drive over, you know, that I wouldn't be too late." Fingers skimmed lightly across the back of Loki's hands, pressing harder every time they moved over the small bump, wanting to feel every bit of it through Loki's clothes they way he had been too afraid to feel it while they were lying naked together in the dark.

"I'm keeping my baby," Loki repeated, not sure if he had heard Tony right.

"You are keeping your baby, and I would be honoured if you would allow me too help you take care of him. I would be proud to tell everyone who would listen that he's mine and you're mine, if you'd let me. And if I ever, ever do anything like this to you again, if I so much as forget your birthday or, or, or, I don't even know, anything, please just punch me in the face, because fuck knows I need sense knocked into me by someone now that Pepper isn't around."

"I love you," Loki told him, his lips soft and his smile sweet before he pressed his mouth to Tony's.

"I love you too," Tony replied when they pulled apart. Happy had rolled down their window, his face peering in at them to see if they were ok, but there were others around him that were looking too, trying to spy on Anthony Stark. But Tony pulled Loki towards him again, kissing him desperately in full view of any one who cared to watch, because this might not have been in his plans, but they were in his life now and since when had Anthony Stark given a fuck what anyone else thought of him?

**The End**

One more prompt to go… But work tomorrow as well :(


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